A little liberal ranting

OK, so I open the newest Time magazine this afternoon. It's the "Special Mind & Body Issue" all about the science of happiness...happy happy happy stuff. I'm reading that I'll live longer (I know it's hard to tell here, but I'm a die-hard optimist and often obscenely happy-go-lucky), be healthier, enjoy more of life, etc. etc. etc. I'm feeling happy. I'm also happy as now I can toss the Man of the Year issue with W on the cover. My mother is a die-hard Democrat, but kept leaving the damn thing face up, so I'd walk by the coffee table and turn Mr. Bush face down. I know, it's such a small political win, but hey, I take 'em where I can get 'em and having the man's face looking all presidential in my living room was not good for my general mood.

SO, FIRST I read a little column about Mr. Armstrong Williams, a conservative talk-show host for "The Right Side" and appears regularly on other tv and radio shows as well. USA Today uncovered a bit of a scandal. It appears the Department of Education had a contract paying this guy $240,000 (PAID FOR BY OUR TAX DOLLARS----APPARENTLY WE DON'T NEED TO SPEND $$ ON EDUCATION) to promote President Bush's No Child Left Behind law on his talk show and on other appearances. The Bush Administration saw no conflict with the contract and the Dept. of Education's comments were the contract was "a permissible use of taxpayer funds." The article in Time goes on to explain that this is in direct violation of anti-propaganda laws as well as a BIT un ethical, you think??? I thought I'd better not leave the new issue out for mom to read as she's the head negotiator for the NEA for her school district. She spends hours and sweat fighting for a few more dollars for teachers' salaries and teaching supplies and lower classroom numbers, etc. I think paying some yahoo to promote an educational program that DOES NOT WORK with money from the Dept. of Education would not help her 2-day migraine. Nope. It even started to make my head hurt a bit. Paying some yahoo over $200 thousand to talk nice about our president's plan that doesn't work. nice.

Feeling not quite so happy, I skipped the article about Mr. Bush's new-found love of reading. No, not quite, he just loves reading two new books that also reinforce the fact that his plans are working. Whatever works. I also skipped an article with the picture of a crying mother in her army uniform kissing one of her FOUR children goodbye so she can depart to Iraq. barely happy now...

I finally progressed on to the happy article. I found a bunch of good quotes, one of which I even have in my little hand-written journal of quotes I like...
"If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time." --Edith Wharton
I moved on to the little side note with what makes the stars happy...and actually laughed so hard I snorted on Carson Kressley's "A world without pleated khakis." (the clothing guy from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy)....Feeling HAPPY and then I get to Ms. Ann Coulter, Conservative Gadfly, on what makes her happy..."Liberals weeping, crying and threatening to move to Canada." Yup. Pissed me off too. I went from a happy little peace-loving liberal to a pissed of momma who wanted to whoop up on this biotch. I had a break-through. WHY wait for another 4 stinking years and scrape around for a candidate to beat Bush's army, why not start NOW looking for a candidate we can get behind and BELIEVE IN??? A campaign to elect someone because you believe in them and what they can do for the country is totally different from one where you try to elect someone because they are the lesser of 2 evils.....I'm tired of being a peace-able liberal. I'm pissed. I, too, was thinking too bad Canada's so far away and so cold, but now I'm pissed. I'm taking back my little area of the country so help me. I KNOW I'm in the middle of Bush-loving Conservative-MORAL-KANSAS but dammit, I'm going to do something. Right now that something is trying not to eat an entire box of GS cookies, but hey, that feels like doing something. Look out conservative moral majority, you've got one little pissed off liberal out for blood, and I don't think peanut butter patties are going to fulfill this lust for blood.....

Oh, and I re-read all my knitting books and STILL can't decide what I want to do...went crazy not having something to work on while the kids were running around the house like banshees (we REALLY need to have a day without snow & ice so they can get OUTDOORS once in a while), so I swatched a few samples of the silver glitterspun lion brand yarn, found it would work for the cute sweater set I found in one of my books, but I have 6 skeins and it would take about 23 total, so thought nope. Then went and worked for another 2 hours or so here from home to get caught up on my hours so I can buy more yarn and food for my little monsters and more yarn. HEY, I ate tuna fish & stale wheat thins & a $.38 diet coke for lunch today to save my dollars for a down payment on a new house, a real vacation with said monsters, and YARN. I'm getting enough for a sweater soon if it kills me.